


Pieces Of The Past

by vespertineflora



Series: Pieces [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 00:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2527634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vespertineflora/pseuds/vespertineflora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the other end of things, in tracking Bucky down for Steve, Tony learns who's actually responsible for the death of his parents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pieces Of The Past

He couldn’t say that he’d thought it was a good idea, because he hadn’t actually thought about it. He didn’t sit down to carefully weigh his options. As soon as he came across the information, he’d just jumped into action.

Tony had been in the process of helping Steve find his friend, though he hadn’t told Steve that. Though of course Tony had heard about the whole SHIELD/Hydra helicarrier stunt, he had only later found out from Bruce (who’d heard from Nat) that Steve had been looking for his friend, one James Buchanan Barnes, that he’d apparently thought had died back during World War II, but apparently hadn’t died at all, but had been brainwashed by the same Nazi organisation that Steve had thought he’d put an end to when he crashed that plane into the ice. (The whole thing was quite convoluted, even by Tony’s standards, and he thought that was saying something.)

And Tony was no idiot. He and Steve hadn’t gotten off to the greatest start, but they’d eventually developed a mutual respect and liking for each other, and though Tony wasn’t the type to ever bring it up or make a big deal about it... it didn’t take a licensed professional to notice that despite the brave face Steve wore, he was sad. Lonely. Grieving. It was a void that couldn’t seem to be completely filled by anything their modern world could offer; Tony hadn’t had anything he could do about that, though. He knew he wasn’t exactly the most comforting person on the planet, so he’d left the task open for others who were better suited to the task.

Now that Steve’s best friend from the past (Tony had heard a few passing stories about Bucky Barnes from his father) was back though... well, this was something Tony could actually do something about. He’d thrown together a program to take advantage of facial recognition software and the network of widespread cameras throughout America (and other countries) to alert him should Bucky pop his head up out of the sand long enough to be spotted on camera. It had been running a few weeks now without much activity--of course, the guy was a trained assassin who was supposedly “a ghost,” so Tony honestly wasn’t that surprised.

It was impossible to say what had drawn his attention to the SHIELD database he’d covertly copied to his own server that day. He’d just started to get impatient and finally thought to maybe learn more about this Winter Soldier guy and see if he could maybe somehow factor some additional knowledge into tracking the guy down to speed up this whole process. He hadn’t expected to uncover anything that relevant, much less anything that would be of any real interest to him.

But what he did find made his stomach clench and twist to the point that he almost felt sick.

His parents’ death hadn’t been an accident. It was all there in SHIELD’s files, all the details they’d known about their deaths, and the unmistakable connection to the Winter Soldier. It had been a hit ordered by Hydra, pure and simple, the Winter Soldier had appeared and driven them off the road, into a ditch, ensuring their deaths.

Tony could barely breathe as he stared down at the file in front of him, his mind racing more than usual, as his heart felt dead and empty, aching with the urge to do something, anything, to act, to avenge. He had spent so much time blaming nothing, blaming the universe, blaming God as much as he could with how much he actually believed in such an entity, and he’d suffered the frustration that came with being unable to do a damn thing except feel sad... But he’d spent all that time blaming the wrong things. The cause of his turmoil was nowhere near as divine... and far more tangible and easy to punish.

It seemed too eerie to be utter coincidence when Jarvis’s voice broke into his jumbled thoughts. “Sir,” he spoke up, almost tentative, “This perhaps isn’t the best time, but... we’ve spotted a 93% facial match to Sergeant James Barnes near the Baltimore Inner Harbor. Shall I send an alert to Captain Rogers?”

“No,” Tony heard himself saying as he rose from his seat, felt himself filling with purpose. “Don’t bother.”

His mind was cold and blank as less than a minute later (and despite Jarvis’s gentle prodding against what he was doing) he was suited up and in the air, rocketing towards Barnes’s location at nearly Mach 3.

He was in Baltimore airspace in less than six minutes and it was barely more than two minutes later that he spotted the dark figure lumbering down South Calvert Street, away from the Harbor, and Tony dropped down onto the roof of a building, raised his right hand, ready to activate the repulsor and blow the guy away before he even knew he was there.

But then... Barnes stumbled, tripping over what seemed to be his own feet, and fell hard against the nearby building and quite suddenly Tony snapped back to himself. He faltered. And he faltered long enough to look at Barnes, to see his hollowed face, his cut cheek, his scuffed knuckles, his damaged prosthetic.

He faltered long enough to remember that this man, Bucky Barnes, hadn’t been acting of his own free will when Tony’s parents were murdered. He faltered long enough to see Bucky as a human who had been extorted, taken advantage of by a force beyond his control, and who was now beat to hell and pathetic looking, and at that point, he couldn’t bring himself to do a damn thing else.

Tony took off then and headed back towards New York. As soon as they had left Baltimore, Jarvis spoke up, his voice as gentle as an AI could hope to be, “Shall I send an alert to Captain Rogers now?”

“Yeah,” Tony replied, ignoring the slight quiver to his voice. “Text him. Make it sound like something I’d say.”

“Of course, sir,” Jarvis said.

“And tell him I’ll... take a look at the arm too. It looks like it needs work.”

“Messages sent,” Jarvis confirmed. There was a slight pause, then Jarvis asked, “Shall I also alert Ms. Potts?”

Tony ignored that and made his way back to Stark Tower as quick as he could.

~~~

Pepper arrived back in their small shared space in Stark Tower late that night to find Tony hunched over on the couch. His face was buried in his hands when she entered the room and there was a nearly empty bottle of $800 scotch and a mostly empty glass on the table in front of him

“Tony?” she ventured softly. Something was very wrong. She didn’t need to know or see or hear anything else to know that much, because she knew Tony well enough to recognize when he was grieving. The question that worried her was... who was he grieving for?

He didn’t lift his head at the sound, just shook it a little bit, and Pepper crossed the room quickly, taking the seat on the couch next to him and reaching out to brush her fingers through his hair as her other hand fell to his knee. “Tony, what happened?”

Her first thoughts were of Rhodey, Happy, Dr. Banner (though she was fairly sure she would have heard already, if something had happened to one of them), or maybe even Harley, that boy Tony had met a couple years ago and was still in contact with.

Tony rubbed his face a few times before he finally pulled his hands away--his eyes were dry now, but they were red-rimmed and a bit too puffy to hide that he had been crying fairly recently. His voice cracked gently as he spoke, “It... it wasn’t an accident.”

Pepper’s brow furrowed and she shook her head, her heart in her throat. “What wasn’t?”

She could tell he was trying hard to collect himself. He didn’t like anyone to see him in pieces, not even her, she knew that all too well after so many years, though he had... made progress in the last few years in learning how to let her in from time to time instead of just making her read between the lines. Finally, he gasped out, “My parents.”

The answer gave her the very slightest hint of relief to know it wasn’t a new loved one dead... though the relief was quickly overshadowed with concern and confusion. She knew as well as the rest of the world did that Howard and Maria Stark had been killed in a car crash in December of ‘91, but... was that not the case? She bit her lip slightly as her fingers continued to comb through Tony’s hair.

“It was a hit,” he said, his eyes staring vacantly ahead. “An... assassination.”

“By... who?” she asked gently, only imagining what kind of shock this must have been, understanding why Tony seemed so very rattled.

“Hydra,” he said, shaking his head, his hands pressing back against his face as he let out a slow breath, “apparently.”

She didn’t doubt him, not a bit, but she was curious. “Where’d you learn this?”

“The assassin was... the Winter Soldier. The Cap’s war buddy.”

“Oh,” she said with a soft exhale. She knew what he’d been working on. Other than Jarvis, she was probably the only one that knew. If it wasn’t some publicized charity event, Tony didn’t like to broadcast when he was doing something kind. Trying to find Steve Roger’s brainwashed best friend was probably the sweetest thing Tony could do, so, naturally, it had to be kept utterly secret. Tony must have stumbled across the information in looking over the Winter Soldier’s files.

Her arms slipped around him then, moving around his back, and he leaned into her easily, his hands coming down from his face so he could press it lightly into the crook of her neck, his hands moving to the small of her back. Pepper cradled him against her and rocked him ever so gently in her arms as she kissed his temple. She could only imagine how this felt, to suddenly learn that the accident that had taken away your parents was no accident at all...

“He... he was spotted today. Barnes, I mean,” Tony said after a long quiet moment. “Baltimore.”

Pepper tensed again, used the tension to hold Tony a bit closer as she waited for him to continue. 

“I went, I guess... thinking I should get revenge or... I don’t know,” he said with a soft breath. “I don’t think I was thinking.”

“What happened?” she asked gently, even though she couldn’t be sure she wanted the answer.

Tony shook his head against her. “Nothing,” he admitted quietly, “He was in bad shape, so I... left. I couldn’t attack him.”

Pepper exhaled gently, grateful, her hands rubbing across his back soothingly. “You made the right choice,” she reassured. “You know he didn’t have control over himself when he did those things.”

“I know,” Tony agreed. “I probably would have felt worse if I had hurt him... but I still feel like shit for doing nothing.”

Pepper pressed a few more kisses to the top of his head. She couldn’t always be sure what to say to Tony in hard times like this. It had occurred to her a long time ago that heartfelt words and promises didn’t mean as much to him as actions did, because Tony had been betrayed far too many times by people making promises... so maybe it wasn’t all that bad. If it meant more to Tony to just hold him close for a while, then Pepper was happy to give him that.

She waited a long time, until she felt him relax against her, to speak up. “What do you say we get you sobered up?” she said sweetly. “We can order a pizza, take a nice hot shower while we wait for it. Does that sound good?”

He mumbled something incoherent against her, but she felt him nod and she smiled gently. 

“Let’s do that then,” she said, helping him get up off the couch, sending him to the bathroom to get the shower started while she ordered a pizza for them, and afterwards, she went to join him under the perfectly hot water as they washed each other carefully. They dressed in their most comfortable pajamas and spent the rest of the night cuddled on the couch, eating pizza, and watching some silly comedy movie Jarvis had picked out for them.

Jarvis decided to hold the messages Steve Rogers had sent back (“I don’t know how you found him, but thank you. He’s with me now.” and “If you could look at his arm, that’d be great. Let me know when.”) until morning.


End file.
